Alfred Amonn, Entgegnung (1915)

Alfred Amonn’s Entgegnung responds to Werner Sombart’s criticism of his Objekt und Grundbegriffe der theoretischen Nationalökonomie. Published in German in 1915, the reply combines a defense of scholarly practice with an argument about the conceptual foundations of theoretical economics. Its governing distinction is between the empirical things studied and the objects constituted by a discipline’s particular questions. Historical and theoretical economists may investigate the same phenomena without requiring identical concepts.

Amonn initially separates Sombart’s polemical manner from the accusations that warrant an answer. His characterization of that manner places the controversy within a broader pattern of disciplinary antagonism:

Diese ist man von seiten Sombarts ja gewohnt und haben sich schon viel angesehenen und bedeutendere Fachkollegen gefallen lassen müssen.

English translation: One is indeed accustomed to this on Sombart's part, and far more respected and more eminent colleagues in the field have already had to put up with it.

The more consequential issue is Sombart’s inference from omissions in Amonn’s book to the alleged bibliographical ignorance of Austrian economists generally. Amonn acknowledges the omission of Rodbertus and Marx as a serious deficiency, explains his concentration on academically prevailing doctrines, and refers to an intended but unwritten essay on Marx’s method. A valid criticism of his selection, he argues, cannot support an indictment of an entire intellectual community. He also resists treating Böhm-Bawerk’s theory as a merely local Austrian concern or attributing opposition to Marx to political anxiety.

Amonn presents the substantive response as secondary to this correction of the controversy’s terms:

Auch die sachlichen Einwendungen, die er gegen meine Auffassung der theoretischen Nationalökonomie erhebt, reizen mich nicht zu einer Antikritik, wenngleich ich, nachdem ich schon einmal das Wort ergreife, auch dazu Stellung nehmen will.

English translation: The substantive objections he raises against my conception of theoretical political economy likewise do not provoke me to a counter-critique, although, now that I am taking the floor at all, I will also take a position on them.

Against Sombart’s claim that their work is similarly oriented, Amonn distinguishes Erfahrungsobjekt from Erkenntnisobjekt. Shared references to capital or enterprise do not establish shared cognitive aims. The theorist seeking the general conditions of interest may need a different concept of capital from the historian investigating the emergence of modern capitalism. Invoking Rickert’s methodological distinction, Amonn locates his own contribution not in discovering that concepts depend on intellectual purposes, but in applying this principle to the problems constituting theoretical economics since Ricardo.

The discussion of scholarly recognition likewise rejects the idea that neglect is itself an intellectual offense:

Ich erachte es vielmehr als ganz in der Ordnung, daß man mich in Wien nicht liest.

English translation: On the contrary, I regard it as entirely in order that I am not read in Vienna.

This remark reinforces the separation between personal reception and the adequacy of an argument. The substantive question is whether Amonn’s conceptual construction answers the requirements of theoretical inquiry.

His treatment of definitions develops that criterion. A definition must do more than avoid ambiguity: it must adequately delimit the discipline’s object. Another definition of Wirtschaft cannot establish that object if its determination depends instead on the logical requirements of the problems under investigation. Giving the resulting object a familiar name does not supply its derivation.

The monetary discussion makes the distinction between empirical association and conceptual necessity concrete. Amonn accepts the importance of payment and exchange value but denies that payment must logically take place in money or that exchange value must ultimately refer to material goods. He separates money as a material means of exchange from the ideal, socially recognized unit in which prices are expressed. Their customary conjunction does not prove conceptual identity. Reckoning prices in one unit while paying with another currency illustrates why recurrent practical arrangements cannot settle the theoretical issue.

Finally, Amonn distinguishes formulating problems from solving them. Profit-seeking, commodity knowledge, and complete market information might function as auxiliary assumptions in reaching determinate solutions; he leaves their necessity for that purpose open. They do not thereby become foundations of the basic concepts his book seeks to establish. Buying cheaply and selling dearly is a particular case of rational action, although such orientations may have distinct importance for historical inquiry.

The conclusion defends theoretical economics even when it serves other sciences: an auxiliary function does not diminish its contribution to knowledge. The reply thus makes disciplinary legitimacy depend on the relation between concepts and explanatory tasks, rather than on school allegiance, ordinary language, or features habitually found together in experience.